As time goes on, more physical and cognitive ills have been linked to hearing loss.

Only a formal hearing test conducted by a professional is reliable to know what type of hearing aid will fit your situation. If you think you may have a hearing problem, see a hearing specialist. Sooner, rather than later.

Hearing loss affects many aspects of an individual’s life. As you have a more difficulty understanding a conversation, you may start to become isolated socially. It can affect all of your relationships.

After a certain point, there may be a loss of income if the individual has a harder time doing ‘normal hearing’ tasks, such as talking on a telephone. There are some new technological ways to help the employee, including captioning phones. Learning about how to use these Assistive Listening Devices can help a person with hearing loss become empowered again.

You may be saying to yourself “Well, my hearing is not so bad right now. I can wait a little while longer to get tested and get aids, if I need them.”

However, there are problems with waiting. Delays in getting hearing aids reduces the level to which hearing can be restored. If you don’t use it, you lose it. Research points to even a mild or moderate loss as possibly being a problem. And there are other things to consider.

According to Johns Hopkins University, individuals with hearing loss are at a three-fold increased risk of falling. “Gait and balance are things most people take for granted, but they are actually very cognitively demanding,” Frank Lin, a coauthor of the study says. “If hearing loss imposes a cognitive load, there may be fewer cognitive resources to help with maintaining balance and gait.” Twenty to thirty percent of people who fall will suffer moderate to severe injuries such as cuts, hip fractures, or head traumas. These injuries can make it difficult to get around or live independently, and increase the risk of early death.

Just a mild to moderate hearing loss can possibly create diminished brain function that affects you in ways that we are just now beginning to understand. The results are not final but another study by Johns Hopkins and the National Institute on Aging found that men and women with uncorrected hearing loss are much more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. According their findings, people with uncorrected, severe hearing loss were five times more likely to develop dementia than those with normal hearing. It is believed that even having mild hearing loss doubled the dementia risk. That risk, says Lin, appeared to increase once hearing loss began to interfere with the ability to communicate — for example, in a noisy restaurant.

If you have a hearing loss in just one ear, some professionals say that it’s often better for your overall brain health to get two aids and give your brain the additional input that it may need to stay “hearing healthy.”

All of this gloom and doom stuff is scary. It’s controversial and it’s still being researched. We have to know these things, in order to be prepared to take action, but it’s not fun. If it’s not depressing enough to have to deal with a hearing loss, now we have to worry about losing our minds and other health problems!

Research is now being done on people who have hearing loss that has been corrected and it looks likely that hearing aids make a big difference. Take your health and life into your own hands! Treat your hearing loss, keep your brain involved in things that interest you, with people who care — this will make a big difference to your physical health and mental well-being.

Only about one in five people who need hearing aids actually have them. A substantial number of those who have them do not use them because they bother them somehow or the various functions may seem too complex to understand. Once you get a hearing aid, it’s important to have a provider with whom who feel comfortable because you almost certainly will need to go back multiple times to get them adjusted so that you are satisfied with them. Many people don’t want to bother their provider with multiple questions; nevertheless, each of us must become our own advocates.

How do you find out if you have a hearing loss? It’s simple, just call The Hearing Professionals today at (414) 332-3377 and set up an appointment with one of our expert haring healthcare providers.

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About Adam Bernstein

Adam Bernstein is the owner of The Hearing Professionals, Milwaukee's premier hearing healthcare facility.
As the owner of The Hearing Professionals, Mr. Bernstein has over 20 years of experience in the hearing healthcare industry. He began his career in 1995 at GN Danavox, one of the largest hearing aid manufacturers in the world.
After leaving Danavox, Mr. Bernstein opened two hearing healthcare offices in Chicago, IL. In 2001 he moved to Milwaukee, WI and opened The Hearing Professionals. In 2008 he added a second Wisconsin office in the town of Brookfield. Today The Hearing Professionals is the largest private audiology practice in SE Wisconsin.
Mr. Bernstein has written numerous articles on hearing healthcare which has appeared in newspapers throughout the country and has been interviewed by news programs regarding advances in the hearing industry. Mr. Bernstein a member of Unitron’s Customer Advisory Board and a graduate of The University of Minnesota. You can email him at adam@icanhearthat.com and you can visit The Hearing Professionals at www.icanhearthat.com.